Do what makes you happy
How to never complete anything
21–30 of 220 posts
Re: How to never complete anything
#22I can't imagine ever shipping a side project. That's not why I build them. If I ever got to the point in my life where I do want my own company, a side project is not the way I want to go about it. Companies take a lot of work, that work has to be understood, then delegated and shared. The technology aspect is really only 10% of it. Sure, it's the essential 0-to-1 kicker that gets you going, but once that's done you…
I agree with a lot of this. My one comment is that not all side projects are about a "full startup business". I shipped my 2 mo. side project this summer. Donors Choose Project Finder
https://appsto.re/us/JVmbab.i . It was 100% pro bono , and to keep my skills sharp. So far over $20,000 in supported donations. Keep an eye open for the next set of features :)
Re: How to never complete anything
#23[deleted]
Re: How to never complete anything
#24YOU NEVER ACTUALLY TOLD HOW
Re: How to never complete anything
#25Your problem is you have no momentum. You need to build momentum and get over your fear of shipping.
My advice: pick three "side projects": one that you can build in a day, one that you can build in a week, and one that you can build in a month.
Build the first one in a day and ship it. This will motivate you and build your confidence in your shipping abilities. Then build the second one in a week and ship it. Then build the third one in a month and ship it. You've now shipped three projects, good going!
That said, I want to echo what @vinceguidry said. Side project != business. If you want to build a business, the same logic applies... just get something out the door. But you need to be serious about ongoing support and maintenance. Whereas a side project could be anything, like a fun open source project, a personal website, experimenting with new frameworks, etc.
p.s. Don't be so hard on yourself. You just shipped a blog post to the top of HN. And you've got a long history of blog posts on there. Maybe you should ask yourself why you can ship blog posts but not side projects?
Re: How to never complete anything
#26Ship daily
This is the advice I can give to anyone who has a side project. Get to the point where you can show something to the users and just start adding stuff.
Even if it's just two lines of code or changing the favicon - still worth it. In practice, it's harder to do than it sounds, but I've been doing it for some time and it's been going great.
In reality, you won't have millions of users on day 1 no matter how great your product is. If you start small and keep adding stuff you will have more success.
In fact, the biggest challenge for side projects is marketing and not the tech or infrastructure.
However, it also depends on the goal - if you want to build the project that makes money it's completely different story to experimenting with tech. In the end, you get the experience.
For example, a few years ago I managed to build an overengineered CDN product that compressed images on the fly (almost on the fly). I shipped the project and it even worked great for testers, but I didn't get to the point where it makes money, so I shut it down as with half unfinished features as it was taking too much time.
While building it I managed to learn Go, improve my AWS skills, plus some other tricks. Now it sounds like a great investment even though I feel that I haven't completed the project.
Re: How to never complete anything
#27I can't imagine ever shipping a side project. That's not why I build them. If I ever got to the point in my life where I do want my own company, a side project is not the way I want to go about it. Companies take a lot of work, that work has to be understood, then delegated and shared. The technology aspect is really only 10% of it. Sure, it's the essential 0-to-1 kicker that gets you going, but once that's done you…
> And you really need rapid growth in order for working on a startup of your own creation to beat out having a reasonably-decent job
I disagree. You only need to get the income you want with the work you are willing to invest. Depending on what you do and what you need, that can mean that scaling up is not required at all.
Bootstrapping a business out of a side project is a thing.
Re: How to never complete anything
#28Here's the thing, there's a lot of social pressure in our industry to start a startup.
I wonder if OP has ever question why he wants to create these startups.
I found a while ago, that I like kids, I like playing with them, I would never have one though, I see Startups as the same way, it's something you'd be stuck forever, like my JQuery Mobile based product of my own startup, I can tell you now that I get to fuck around in my free time, now I'm happier.
You need to question yourself more, are you a programmer or an entrepreneur?
Re: How to never complete anything
#29Well, learning is the fun part for me. As long as I do not have to finish I probably would not.
I feel the same way. ;-)
Most of the projects I work on in my free time I start because I want to learn about something (new language, new UI framework, whatever), and once I feel I have achieved that, my motivation drops dramatically.
Also, not having to deal with deadlines, strange and ever-shifting requirements, or angry users is part of the fun. Walking away from a half-finished program is not something I could get away with at work, so it is kind of a relief to be able to do that sometimes.
Re: How to never complete anything
#30I often find that when I'm working on a really good side project I severely underestimate the time to finish.
Of the few times I've forced myself to actually finish it ended up completing in the wee hours of the morning.
So I've became more picky about the side projects and if I'm unwilling to commit to finishing it in the wee hours of the morning then it probably isn't worth doing at all.